


The Doors You Open

by DoubleNegative



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Existential Angst, F/M, John and Sherlock do not get together, M/M, Season/Series 03 Alternate Ending, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Songfic, Unrequited Love, no happy ending, no infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Sherlock's plane hadn't turned around at the end of "His Last Vow"?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doors You Open

The early January wind whistled around the loose knot of people on the runway, biting and sharp on the open ground of the tarmac. John shifted uneasily beside Mary, one hand in hers, the other balled in his pocket, nails digging into his palm. Finally, Sherlock cleared his throat, the sound ringing loud in the silence. “Since this is likely to be the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson…would you mind if we took a moment?” His eyes darted to Mycroft, then Mary. John felt her fingers tighten around his briefly before she slipped her hand free and moved away. Mycroft blinked, as though startled by Sherlock’s request, but he nodded anyway, and gestured the security back a few paces.

John stared at his feet for a moment, unsure of what to say, now that they were alone-- even more so, perhaps, now that they were alone. He could feel Sherlock’s gaze on him, heavy and searching. He forced himself to look up, to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “So. Here we are.”

_Since this is likely to be the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson…_

_…likely to be the last conversation I’ll have…_

_...the last conversation..._

Sherlock’s words to Mycroft rang in his ears, and suddenly everything seemed to slot into place: Mycroft’s reticence, unusual even for him. The undercover assignment Sherlock had mentioned rejecting over Christmas. The strange expressions that skittered across Sherlock’s features when he thought no one was looking.

He cleared his throat and stepped a little closer, tipping his head up just a little to meet Sherlock’s strangely shifting eyes.

Sherlock took a long deep breath. “William Sherlock Scott Holmes,” he said finally.

“Sorry?” John asked.

“That’s the whole of it. If you’re looking for baby names.”

John huffed out a laugh. “No, we’ve had a scan. We’re pretty sure it’s a girl.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said, very softly. He smiled, and the hint of wonder and wistfulness in his eyes twisted in John’s stomach. He was struck with the sudden image of a baby’s downy head, cradled in Sherlock’s large hands. His throat tightened, and he looked back down at his feet, then at the airfield around them. He realized abruptly how close they were standing, how far from private this moment really was.

(But why, after all, should he wish for privacy? Why should his wife’s gaze on his back-- his _pregnant_ wife’s gaze on his back-- feel like anything but a comfort, a steadying warmth? And why did the wind feel like it was whistling right through him, in a way it hadn’t been twenty minutes before?)

He looked back up at Sherlock, still gazing steadily down at him through it all. “I can’t think of a single thing to say,” he admitted. There was no script for this.

That strange wistful smile again, that fleeting trace of something else, familiar and elusive all at once. “No, neither can I.”

Without quite thinking about it, John stepped closer. He had to say something. If this was-- if this was the last time, truly the last time--

\--his mind flashed to the last time he’d thought it was _the last time_ : the searing panic he’d felt as he watched the scarlet stain spread across Sherlock’s chest, ruthlessly shoved aside as all his old instincts kicked in--

And the time before that: the breathless minutes in the train car, the weight of all that stone and metal already pressing down, squeezing out a gasping confession--

And before that: a silhouette on the rooftop, a ragged voice on the phone, seconds stretching out into infinity, time flowing like molasses--

And for all that--for all that, it had been beautiful, in the way that the slow-motion twist of a bullet through the air is beautiful, that scorching midday sun is beautiful, that burning muscles and straining limbs and screaming adrenaline are beautiful. Fierce and sharp and vivid. Technicolor.

“The game is over,” John said, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat.

 

//

 

“You wish you were with him, don’t you?” Mary asked, days later. Her tone was matter-of-fact, casual, belying the danger hidden below the surface of the question. They hadn’t discussed Sherlock at all, since the airfield.

“No,” John said quickly. Too quickly? He couldn’t tell any more. “No, I don’t. I just. I’d rather he weren’t there. But I’m right where I want to be.” He looked up from the carrots he was chopping. Forced himself to smile, to meet her eyes. He knew the lines and the blocking, now.

Her answering smile was as strained as his. John could not remember the last time he’d managed a smile that reached his eyes, or seen one in return.

On the radio, an echoing, synth-heavy melody spun itself into the silence.

_Well, you lied to me ‘cause I asked you to--_ _Baby, can we still be friends?_

Mary stabbed at the power button on the radio, her movements startling and jerky in the stillness, and fled the room.

It had all seemed so _possible_ at Christmas. Difficult, yes, but possible. He’d thrown the flash drive in the fire with a mounting conviction that he could make his world right again, that the fractures in the life they’d built would heal the same way Sherlock’s bullet wound had.

They were more than fractures. He could see that now. They were fault lines, and John had built his house directly above them--over and over and over again.

 

//

 

“For how long?” John asked, aware that he was asking something else entirely.

Sherlock squared his shoulders and fixed his eyes on a point just beyond John. “Six months, my brother estimates. He’s never wrong.”

“And then what?” John asked, before he could stop himself. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he had misunderstood. Not such a rare occurrence, as Sherlock would be the first to remind him.

Sherlock’s eyes skittered from John’s face to his shoes to the treeline beyond them. Not wrong, then. “Who knows?” Sherlock said.

No. Not wrong. It was John’s turn to look away and he stared unblinking at the treeline until his eyes burned. Sherlock waited quietly, patiently, while John drew in a deep breath, and then another. And another. His fingers curled and uncurled at his side.

Finally, he turned back. Sherlock regarded him steadily for a minute longer, then let his gaze drop back to the pavement between their feet.

“John, there’s something I should say, that I-- I’ve _meant_ to say, always, and then never have.” He paused incrementally, seemed to gather himself. “Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now.”

John felt time slow, felt the future--such as it was--stretch out before them, balanced on the blade of a knife. He held his breath, waiting to see which way they would fall.

Several long moments passed, and John could feel nothing except his heartbeat drumming in his chest, the strange tightness in his chest, the weight of Mary’s gaze on his back.

Sherlock drew a breath and looked up at him.

John waited. Teetered.

“Sherlock is actually a girl’s name.” It came out in a rush of breath, of panicked almost-laughter, and John had to turn away to muffle his nervous giggle.

_(We can’t giggle. It’s a crime scene.)_

He turned back to Sherlock, swallowing down the fading remains of his laughter. The rush of adrenaline left him shaking, as though he was still teetering on the edge. “It’s not,” he said.

Sherlock’s smile broadened and twisted, crinkling the corners of his eyes, nearly masking that wistful regret and the lurking sadness John had seen before. “It was worth a try.”

“We’re not naming our daughter after you.” He felt off-balance and slow in the wake of--whatever that had been, whatever had almost happened.

“I think it could work,” Sherlock said, in that mock-serious way he had.

John chuckled again, despite himself. As though any infant-- any person, really-- could bear up under the weight of that name. Of that namesake.

Slowly, Sherlock peeled off his right glove, one finger at a time, and extended his bare hand toward John. “To the very best of times, John,” he said, solemn again.

John hesitated for just a moment before taking Sherlock’s hand. He considered, for a fleeting second, pulling Sherlock into a hug-- he’d done it before, hadn’t he? he’d hugged him at the wedding, without a second thought-- but Sherlock seemed to be building up his walls again. There was space between them that hadn’t been there five minutes ago, when Sherlock had been wavering on the verge of something. But he’d stepped back from whatever precipice he’d been peering over. His eyes were shuttered again, his manner more formal. He was pulling on his armor.

John gripped his hand for a moment longer, letting Sherlock’s warmth seep into his own wind-chapped skin, and then let go. Stepped back. One last smile and nod, and then Sherlock slipped his glove back on and turned to the plane. John moved backwards until he felt Mary’s fingers curl around his. Sherlock moved forward, as brisk and decisive as he always was. John hoped Sherlock might look back, just once, just to reassure him that he hadn’t imagined the reluctance in his eyes.

After so long, he should have known better.

 

//

 

In another world, perhaps.

In another world, Sherlock might have declared himself at the last. In another world, John might have met him halfway. In another world, there might have been more than a single solemn handshake, more than a final moment.

In another world, Sherlock might not have committed murder. With witnesses, with John’s gun. Beside John, _for_ John (for Mary). In another world, perhaps John would not be so perfect a pressure point for Sherlock, would not _have_ so perfect a pressure point in Mary.

In another world, they might not have been so trapped, the three of them. Murder and exile might not have been the only way out. Sherlock wouldn’t have killed Magnussen. John wouldn’t have let him: Mary wouldn’t have needed him to.

In another world, perhaps there would be no Mary at all. Perhaps John would not have been left alone. Perhaps Sherlock might never have jumped; perhaps Moriarty would have never pushed him to it by sliding a gun between his own lips and pulling the trigger.

In another world, perhaps it would all feel less inevitable.

They did not live in another world.

In this world, Sherlock flung open a door and left John unable to close it again. In this world, he stood open, exposed to the elements. The rain poured in; the sun beat down on him. The wind whistled through; it echoed words and names in his ear like a restless spirit.

 

//

 

Mary never asked him about Sherlock again. John never brought him up.

Instead, they painted the nursery. Bought a crib, a pram, a changing table. Filled the dresser with onesies and nappies and impossibly tiny socks. Mary hung pictures: A is for apple. B is for bear.

John spoke at the right times, moved at the right times, put the right tiny jumpers in the right drawers. If, afterwards, he couldn’t seem to remember what he said or did or put away, well--it was a confusing thing, impending fatherhood. That was all.

Living by rote, he learned, was the easiest life of all.

He didn’t think of Sherlock or the plane. He didn’t scan the papers for suspicious news out of Eastern Europe. He didn’t replay their final conversation in his head, over and over again, every possible permutation of what Sherlock _might have said_.

He’d expected to. But he didn’t.

He didn’t think at all, really. He simply played his role, and let the wind whip right through him as it would.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for redscudery's "Achtung Baby" song fic challenge, with "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" as my prompt. While I grant that that song was never going to result in a happy fic, I... may have taken it a bit too far. Regardless, it's a stellar album and a beautiful song, which you should listen to right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_dkfAj3wo0
> 
> I took my inspiration from two lines in particular: the one I quoted in the fic, and the one that provided the title ("the doors you open, I just can't close").
> 
> I'd like to thank alter and madrona629 for the beta--I know this is not what I usually offer you. I'll offer something fluffysmutty as soon as I can. :) My gratitude as well to the good people of the Antidiogenes chat, who have listened to quite a lot of whining on the subject of this fic. Finally,one thousand thanks to redscudery for a) creating the challenge and letting me participate, and b) being exceedingly patient as I watched the deadline sail by and flailed in chat. I suspect I am on the naughty author list now, and with good reason. (And I'm not talking about the good kind of naughty, here...)
> 
> Finally, I'd never have been able to write this fic without Ariane DeVere's episode transcripts, available here: http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/67234.html


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